Wendell Berry's Another Turn of the Crank

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Wendell Berry's book, Another Turn of the Crank, takes us well beyond the sustainability of agriculture as such. This is a book about community and, necessarily then, it is a book about economics. John Dewey wrote, "Natural associations are the conditions for the existence of a community, but a community adds the function of communication in which emotions and ideas are shared as well as joint undertakings engaged in. Economic forces have immensely widened the scope of associational activities. But it has done so largely at the expense of the intimacy and directness of communal group interests and activities." (Freedom and Culture, pp. 159-160) The context of the present discussion is the disappearance of agrarian communities throughout America and, hence, the death of agrarian culture. Forest culture has been another victim. Part of this story is about access to fresh, healthy foods and good local timber. But most of the story is about much more.

What is economics? On the basis of most college courses in economics, it would be most appropriate to say something about supply and demand, those familiar curves that mysteriously set the price of goods and services. Close in relation to this are the "marginal propensity to consume" and various graphs that demonstrate the relationship between savings and investment, as mediated by the prevailing interest rates, or price of money. Contemporary economists are also fascinated by "the multiplier effect," the fact that the "effective money supply" is always much larger than its foundation in reserves, such as gold. The answer, in other words, is always that money lies at the heart of economics. Value equals price; that is, the value of anything is determined by market conditions. In thi...

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... medium that seems to suggest itself is to restore community relations around a local food supply and timber supply. Following the rules suggested in his second essay, one can ask how much of one's survival needs could be achieved by reciprocal productivity and distribution within a locality. How much of the rest does one consider a necessity? What would the community have to do in order to provide its members with those necessities? It is clear, of course, that this locality-oriented community would look very different from what we now possess.

The real question, however, is what the balance of values achieved might be if the local community were chosen over the global one. Indeed, what are the values favored by this kind of community? Autonomy is clearly one. Genuine face-to-face contact with people is another. Stewardship of the local environment is another.

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